Caterham are so confident that they’ll be racing in Abu Dhabi that the team are preparing freight for the flight to the Middle Eastern race next weekend.
The Leafield-based outfit is currently under the control of administrator Finbarr O’Connell at Smith & Williamson, which have turned to crowdfunding in order to raise funds for the team to race.
At present they have raised almost 60 per cent of the £2.35 million target, but with the deadline expiring on Friday night, it looks unlikely they’ll reach the final amount. However O’Connell is confident that a number of deals currently in discussion will help boost the amount before the fund raising plan closes.
“What we will have and what we are negotiating – and why these things always go to the end – is that we are negotiating drivers’ contracts at the moment and also sponsorship contracts,” he told Crash.net.
“It’s been agreed that those funds will go in to the crowdfunding initiative. We’re very hopeful that those will complete today and they will increase the figure substantially, and so substantially that even though we’ll still be a bit short that (joint administrator) Henry Shinners and I will – if that happens – make a decision to go and try to raise the last bit of money to cover all the costs over the run-up over the next week.
“That’s our plan. So the travel containers are all being filled at Leafield now by the race team. Trucks are in place to bring them to the airport, so that’s how confident we are that we are going to go.”
O’Connell is also confident a buyer can be found for 2015, citing “two to three” new potential investors having come forward because of the success of the crowdfunding initiative.
